Katie is the head chef behind Seconds, the best restaurant in town, but she’s already looking towards new pastures and new challenges. All of her friends have moved away, and she’d like to run her own restaurant, rather than work in somebody else’s kitchen. She’s found the perfect place across the river, but the building work is taking far too long and seems to be tied up in a bureaucratic limbo. She also has the ghost of her previous relationship hanging over her head in the form of ex-boyfriend Max, and to top it off, there might be an actual spirit living in her room. But when an accident goes wrong in the kitchen, Katie discovers a small Lewis Carroll-esque mushroom with a note attached promising to fix everything. Eating the mushroom allows her to revisit the past and choose a different course of events, and soon she is trying to change things further and further back in time. The outcome is what she wished for, but she can’t always remember the steps she took to get there. But that’s nothing to worry about, is it?
Eat, dream, repeat.
Soon, things are spinning out of control, as things she supposedly agreed to/did/said catch up with her, and something in the walk-in freezer has started to grow…
Seconds is quite a departure for O’Malley. Although it retains its hipster card, the video game aesthetic that so permeated Scott Pilgrim has been wiped away. Fans of O’Malley’s previous work will not be disappointed however – this is a totally charming story, filled with a similar brand of humour and a morality tale about acceptance that will strike a chord.
Katie is sweet and believable, a charming mess with a propensity for breaking the fourth wall and arguing with the narrator. Nothing like the slacker Scott Pilgrim, she’s a hard-working and ambitious person, and it’s this desire for perfection that causes her to unravel. The other characters, such as the shy Hazel and the slightly obnoxious Max are well drawn, and have their own stories to tell.
The artwork is gorgeous to look at, with bold character design and luscious backgrounds dripping with detail. Full-page panoramic drawings of the city practically leap off the page, and the same level of detail extends to the colouring. O’Malley has really upped the ante here – this is a crisper and more refined piece of work, even as the characters have reached almost chibi levels of short cuteness. As the mood of the novel darkens, we are treated to the occasional apocalyptic vision, and the slightly psychedelic otherworld outside of time and space.
While the trajectory the novel takes might be predicted, there are enough ingredients in the mix to pull you through the pages, and Katie’s slow realisation is poignant – particularly in the context of her and Hazel’s burgeoning friendship. I enjoyed my time spent with Seconds, and if I could, I would gladly eat a mushroom in order to experience it again for the first time.
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